Elise Christie was disqualified in three separate events (Picture: Reuters)

Speed skating bosses had a great chance to promote their sport to the masses during the Sochi Winter Olympics and, quite frankly, they blew it.

It was all going pretty well until tonight’s debacle involving Team GB’s Elise Christie, who was disqualified for the third successive event of the Games.

And while no-one could really argue her first two infringements, tonight’s decision was nothing short of baffling – and it annoyed a hell of a lot of viewers in the process.

The decision to penalise her, along with the Chinese skater Li Jianrou who tripped Christie as the pair jostled for position around the final bend of her 1000m semi-final, seemed at best extremely harsh and at worst a complete travesty.

No-one, not even Christie, was sure why she was penalised. And therein lies the problem – or alternatively, complete shambles.

Of all the Winter Olympic sports, speed skating is perhaps one of the more obvious candidates for mass participation. Ice rinks are a lot more commonplace around the globe than mountains and snow and, as such, is a sport which could really benefit from the two weeks of exposure.

All you really need to get going is a pair of skates, rather than masses of ski equipment or other teams with a passion for curling to play against.

But the ludicrous decision-making from the officials and – more importantly – the complete refusal to justify their make-or-break judgements, even to the competitors let alone media and fans, is making the sport inaccessible.

Firstly, the viewing public must be shown what the judges are seeing when they are reviewing incidents, because some camera angles they get are deliberately kept from the audience.

Secondly, when the decision is communicated it can’t be just through the letters ‘PEN’ next to a skater’s name on the scoreboard without clear explanation.

It’s really not a great advert and when the governing body – the International Skating Union – doesn’t even have a Twitter account, communication is clearly not their strong point.

Speed skating could have been one of the winners from Sochi 2014 (Picture: AP)

Sure, curling terms such as ‘burned stone’ and ‘hog line’ may leave you scratching your head until you’ve sat through a few ends, but at least – eventually – things start to piece themselves together.

And who really knows what ‘backside triple cork 1440’ and ‘shredding the gnar’ mean in snowboard terms?

But speed skating should be simple, it’s who crosses the line first.

However, the sport clearly has a communication issue and when a decision is so completely ridiculous, with no reasoning to support it, it simply leaves people turning the tv over in anger.

And if people won’t even watch it, how can the ISU expect to attract new participants in new countries?

It’s no way to run an Olympic sport.

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